Arty Farty

86% love it

35Ratings

Old-school Tokyo fave

This hot-spot in Nichome has been around for years. Their sister club the Annex is adjoined, making for two-for-the-price-of-one fun. The club is divided into two sections, one with a large bar area where friendly staff are ready to pour you whatever your thirsty heart desires, the other side a spacious, tiered dance floor. This is a popular spot for expats and English speakers.

Reviews

Great small club in Nichome I have read the reviews on here that are mainly negative and completely disagree. Arty Fatty must be one of the best gay clubs in the world and, believe me, living in London, I have seen loads.
The place is small. By western standarts, this should be called a bar with dancefloor, but for Japan its quite big. The crowd is 50-50 Asian and European. The music is mainly pop. If you expect electronic stuff, you should probably go somewhere else. There is always a queue to get in on weekends, so arrive early and don't forget the place shuts at 1 am, as it's a law in Japan.
The below mentioned barmen aren't very friendly, but they do they job and drinks are fairly cheap.
The crowd is young and handsome. Although Japanese are shy and unlikely to approach you first so be confident. If they are here, then its most likely they are after a white guy. Some are unbelievably beautiful.
To sum up, I could probably compare Arty with Heaven nightclub in London. It's just much smaller, cozier version of it.

Who could ask for more? I like this bar. Because, DJ is good, friendly people, many cute Japanese, the drink is very cheap. Example, a beer is just a 600yen.
Who could ask for more?
Other review is totally unfair and unacceptable for me
I think the bartender attitude is similar to HEAVEN/ London.
Or Arty is better. Because, they care about your turn. I mean order.
They can't speak English well and dying by busy. That's all.
You just say what you want. Then they will try to listen to your order.
And In Japan, nobody expect to good service by cheap DJ bars/ Club.
The music is not stack. DJ play new tracks and dance classics for beginner.
If you need solid club music, then check the "ageha". It's biggest gay party in Tokyo.
Or maybe "OWL"?
Overcharging? It's hard to believe.
The price list is always on the order counter.
If bartenders did it, you should complain to them.
We can dance until 1am by Japanese insane low. This is the reason of they close at 1am.
After Arty, people go to "Annex". It's a sister shop of Arty Farty.
The both bar is most crowd place at Ni-chome on Saturday night.
Many cute guys gather and I think they’re nice and friendly.
But it's hard to notice until you say hello to someone.
Many times, I have seen single trip foreigners who just standing by the wall and they don't try to talk with people.
That's called wasting your time.
I hope you enjoy it and sorry for my English skills

Horrible Place Don't waste your time... The staff are outrageously rude and its obvious all they care about is overcharging and providing a lacklustre place. All the rigid (nonsensical and ridiculous) procedures made us feel like we were entering a penitentiary or going through airport security in somewhere like Saudi Arabia. You could overlook that awful "welcome" if the experience inside were amazing, but seriously, even for Tokyo, it was absolutely dire... Lately Dragon and GB are much better places as well as Advocates. Plenty of other places with lots of locals that welcome foreigners are fun as well like Breeze, etc. If I could give negative stars I would...

Disappointing This place has taken a dive for the worst and is just a money machine for the owners. They refuse to turn the air conditioning on despite it being over 30degrees in there and dangerously overcrowded (one earthquake and forget about an evacuation) and as the other reviewer said the miserable staff are rude and don't speak English even though half the customers are not Japanese.
The music is stuck in the past and is like a CD put on repeat. The DJs who are also rude just pose and refuse to take song requests. If you have to go here, go early as this club closes at 1am.

Overrated , stuffy , rude staff Music consists of the same repetitive pop with tracks coming up 3/4 times a night ( and night there is short!!). When 70% of the customers are foreign, not having staff with basic English skills ( hello and thank you ARE basics !!) is just ridiculous, staff is also very clearly much more polite to Japanese customers than to foreigners. Avoid the "Nocturnal" specials where nothing is "special" apart from the added door charge .

Went midweek, Larger than outside let's on to size. Was actually surprised at size inside. During daytime there is nothing to identify club, at night name is identified. Take entryway to left, walk upstairs and take an immediate right. Club greats you with a large bar (for Tokyo) and beyond is a cozy tiered seating area surrounding a dance floor. Still club would be way packed if just 50 people came inside. Staff very friendly and they do have a menu with drinks in pics and in English with prices published. Overall impressed with layout, set up, music. Just wished it had been a weekend so we could give a better review.

Weekends are best I went here once on an off night then again on a sat. Sat was much better for the scene. Navy boys a plenty on the night i went. The clubs in Japan are different than anywhere else in the world but worth experiencing. When i went during the week it was just me and a friend in the bar chatting with the bar tender. Still had a great time.

Nice little Tokyo Club. This is probably one of the nicest gay clubs in Asia, which isn't saying a lot as there are very few gay clubs there, but at least this is something. It is upstairs and quite small, but that's typical for Tokyo. You must buy a drink upon entry, but there's no cover charge when I was there, even on Saturday nights. It fills up on Saturday night with a Japanese majority but a surprisingly large foreign crowd. A favorite of gay ex-pats living, working or teaching in Japan. In all, nothing special but a fun time with reasonably priced drinks (for Tokyo), friendly crowd & good music.

like a three star hotel Exactly! Nothing special, nothing extra, but everything you need on your Friday night is there: young guys, cheap drinks, decent pop music. Hot in summer, a little bit cold in winter. Almost empty on the weekdays.

Art(y)... or Fart(y)? I never got over the name of this place. Who would call his own club "Arty _Farty_"? That only brings negative associations for the foreign - or English speaking visitors of this club.
Anyway, in Tokyo's Ni-choma gay scene Arty Farty is the most hated and most visited club at the same time. It is funny how everyone keeps saying "I hate Farty", "I dont like going to Arty"... But in the end, everyone ends up there anyway.
So what does a regular Tokyo Ni-chome night out look like? During the happy hours from 6/7 to 9pm you'd be in Advocates and get all-you-can-drink beer for JPY 1000 or in Dragon for all-you-can-drink-cheap-cocktails for JPY 1000. After that (9pm) you either stay put or you switch places to other bars. When you're drunk enough you start to feel like dancing, so you think about clubs you could go to. If you're unlucky there are no monthly gay clubbing events that night and you have to stick with nichome clubs. Cheapest and most popular place to go? Arty is it then!
On regular nights it's free of charge to get in, but minimum consumption of 1 drink upon entry (normal drinks costs JPY 700, cheaper ones JPY 600).
Arty Farty is a quite small and very _very_ packed club. The crowd is mostly young Japanese boys (barely 18 - and therefore not legal visitors to the club as you need to be at least 21 in Japan), Japanese in their early 20s and foreigners in their 20s-30s. Sometimes you can spot a foreigner or a Japanese in his 40s or 50s, but that rarely happens - and usually are the same 2-3 guys all the time :P
Musicwise they play mostly Pop remixes, like Britney, Beyonce, Madonna, Kylie... but also quite lots of Japanese pop music (Amuro Namie). Sometimes when the DJ feel funny he plays some electronic tracks - much to my liking.
The crowd is quite fun, people get all wasted, do group dances on the stage.
Be aware, though! In winter as in summer, it get quite hot and sweaty in there. So you would'nt wanna even stand in there with anything long sleeved. So in winter or when it rains, be sure to get there early, grab a locker to put your stuff (umbrella, coat, backpack/bag) in there, visit other places and come back later for clubbing.
If it wasnt for the music and sweat (they should turn up the A/C a bit more!) I'd rate this place with one more star ;)